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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 610, March 13, 2011 "Much food for thought"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Letter from Andrew G Eggleston Sr. Another Letter from Paul Bonneau Another Letter from L. Neil Smith Yet Another Letter from L. Neil Smith March 2011 BOOK OF THE MONTH: L. Neil Smith's newest novel, Ceres, has been selected as our book of the month for February 2011. Mr. Smith's futuristic novel, set in the comfy confines of the Asteroid Belt and the inner solar system, is sure to elucidate principles of liberty, and encourage people to dream and plan activities in outer space. Pick it up today via our affiliate link: [TLE Affiliate Link to Amazon.com] We have a great lineup of finalists this month too, so check 'em out! 2010 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD: freedombookclub.com's Book of the Year Award for 2010 was presented at the Individual Sovereign University Founding Conference. The conference takes place from March 4-6, 2011 in Kansas City, Missouri. 2011's Book of the Year is Darryl W. Perry's The Anarcho Teachings of Yeshua. If you haven't read it yet, get your copy here: [TLE Affiliate Link to Amazon.com] Also, Mr. Perry is having a Mitzvah for the book to mark the occassion. Check out the event on facebook here. The Individual Sovereign University is accepting students and teachers, so if you have an interest in learning or teaching, contact them via their website: indsovu.com YOUR SUGGESTIONS: A list of books that have been suggested by you and your fellows for consideration in future preference polls is now published. You can view this list at this URL. If you haven't already, we hope that you consider subscribing and get the book of the month sent to you automatically. This will ensure that our club will continue on a strong footing, influencing others. Thanks very much. Be seeing you,
Hi, all! The big news this month is that I've now passed the 12,000-cartoon mark at CartoonStock! Go here. Also, you can go to
Daily brand-new political cartoons are at: balooscartoonblog.blogspot.com And daily non-politicals at: baloo-baloosnon-politicalcartoonblog.blogspot.com Just about any Baloo cartoon you've ever seen is available on a wide variety of products at Zazzle. Use the "Search this Store" to enter keywords to find what you want. Word's like "Obama," "conservative," "libertarian," "politics," etc. If you would like a particular Baloo cartoon on a t-shirt or whatever but can't find it, contact me at [email protected] and i'll prepare it for you. Here's a very popular design:
Finally, please forward this e-mail to your cartoon-appreciating friends! More news as it happen. Best, Rex May
Defund NPR and PBS Dear Senator DeMint, Tell you what ... I agree with you wholeheartedly (and better yet, wholebrainedly) that NPR and PBS must be defunded, in compliance with the Constitution. So must TSA and DHS, for which there is no justification under Article I, Section 8. The sooner the better, L. Neil Smith
Re: Dave Earnest Dear Editor, Hi. I wanted to wait until you had published my letter in which I apologise to Dave Earnest, and for the next issue to come out, in which there was no indication that he had read or accepted my apology, before writing in again. I wish at this time to point out to The Libertarian Enterprise readers and the members of the freedom community in America that Dave Earnest is a rat. Unhappy with me, he has falsely and outrageously suggested that I burned down his neighbour's home, which he is well aware that I did not do. Apparently, he lives in Portland, Oregon area, based on what he wrote about his neighbour the federal judge. I can provide proof of my whereabouts on any day. I have not flown commercially since October 2002, which can also be proven, and my driving records are extremely detailed. I have not been in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon since 2006. So, I say that Earnest is a liar, that he has defamed me, and that he should pay compensation for the harm he has done by making these false statements. There are almost certainly criminal charges related to his actions, which he can take up with the government he loves so much. I think he very likely made false statements to a federal agent in ratting out the Libertarian Enterprise and me over what appears to be a personal insult he took from some letter I wrote in January 2010 or so. Earnest appears, by his conduct, to be no friend of freedom. He is not much of man, since he hides behind the US Marshalls to attack this publication, and me. He has illustrated that he is against freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right of people to petition the government for redress of grievances. Perhaps what Dave Earnest should do is get a job as a federal informer. Then he can play Adrian Lamo to some hapless Bradley Manning, and spend the rest of his life responsible for slow torture, violent aggression, and an out-of-control government. I do not wish him well. I will seek justice under the terms of the zero aggression principle. Regards, Jim Davidson
An open letter to David J. Earnest... Sir, It has come to my attention, that you have made it your personal position; to render a censorship attack upon Jim Davis and The Libertarian Enterprise news magazine, using the Federal Marshal's Service as your own private cudgel. This precludes you from being a man of honor or of any libertarian principle I have ever read. You have no objectivity, and consider yourself, as these same judges do, a protected class of person. All people are crated equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, chief among these are Life, Liberty, and Property. These rights are neither additive nor collective in character; no one person can have more rights than any another, nor two persons, nor two million persons. You would have us believe that though you stand by the principles stated above, you would willingly step outside those very same principles, simply because someone stated something you do not agree with, find offensive, or do not appreciate. Your threats to Jim Davis, Ken Holder, L.Neil Smith and The Libertarian Enterprise; are symptomatic of the malaise that threatens the very fabric of freedom, that is still left in this fine country of ours. You would criticize and condemn that which you do not agree with, you demand an obstruction of rights, guaranteed to us by the very same Constitution that gives you the right to make such demands. Our editor displayed the finest example of news reporting tradition in refusing to retract, or otherwise expurgate Jim Davis' article. David J. Earnest you are pecksniffian, that of affected high moral principles. While you proclaim yourself to be a champion, you sneak to the Federal Marshals and like a good party member, report the location of an undesirable... most likely hoping for a pat on the head from your masters. And you get your moment, everybody knows it was you; who for the first time in 16 years of exemplary work here, managed to violate the first amendment rights. Not just Jim Davis' first amendment rights, you include the rights of; Ken Holder our hard-working editor, L. Neil Smith our publisher, The Libertarian Enterprise, and finally all of us who, (including you) have contributed to this fine news magazine and opinion page for years. Yes, that's right, you violated your own rights you fool. For, once the door of censorship has been opened, it isn't quite so neat or easy to close again. You have uncorked the genie, now how would you propose to get him back into the bottle? I must close now, for I fear my words will become even further acerbic, and I shall become a shadow of your own effort—a position I find disgraceful and embarrassing. You will now be remembered forever, with scorn and disdain, congratulations. Andrew G. Eggleston Sr.
Our freedom to differ cannot be limited to those things that are inconsequential; true freedom includes allowing differences in matters that have meaning and effect the direction of our lives. This kind of freedom carries with it a huge responsibility, that of caring for and being responsible for oneself and allowing others to do the same without interference. Re: Dave Earnest Curious: is it possible to, simply for his own good, refer Mr. Earnest for a psych evaluation? He presents as a clinically paranoid schizophrenic and the poor lad probably needs to be evaluated before he has a chance to carry out the death threat he attempts to make among his deluded ramblings. It would be drolly yet depressingly ironic if, through your inaction, he were to hurt himself or, worse yet, an actual sapient being. Tom Kozan Re: The Genocide Agenda by L. Neil Smith I am a great fan of that knotted revolver sculpture in front of the UN, since it's primary effect is to get Americans to hate the UN, and everything it stands for. It's almost as good as a sculpture showing a boot trampling on someone's face. Maybe Luxembourg can make us one of those too. As to the rest of El Neil's article, yeah, the UN is bad, but I never
could understand why people take it seriously. All that has to be
done, is that the US can tell it to piss off. Failing that, Americans
can tell it to piss off. In fact I can think of no better way to wake
up Americans than to have them see an invasion of blue-helmeted
foreigners. We'd have a revolution immediately; which is why it will
never happen No, the problem is not the UN, but the US. Only the lizard people
running Washington DC can harm us in the ways Neil mentions. The UN
may initiate some repression or other, but DC is required to see it
through. And most repressions lately originate in DC anyway.
Paul Bonneau
Tax the who? I keep hearing all sorts of talking heads arguing in favor of raising taxes on the rich. You and I know it will end up raising everyone else's taxes also, but it is waste of time to argue with them. It does attract my attention that they keep talking in favor of raising other folks' taxes. This is now my standard answer, " Your words mean nothing to me until I see you write a check to the government for one thousand dollars, or ten percent of your last income tax bill, whichever is greater." If you feel an urge to share your wealth with the state, knock yourself out. Just don't be giving them my money. Wyoh Knotts used a simialar trick in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. A.X. Perez
Re: The Constitution and the Zero Aggression Principle by L. Neil Smith El Neil writes, "Somebody should point out to this clown that Shakespeare's works are twice as old as the Constitution, and plenty of people still seem to enjoy them. Beowulf is probably a thousand years old and remains perfectly understandable to those who expend the minimal effort required to learn the almost-English it's written in." There are no political implications in misinterpreting Shakespeare or Beowulf, or other such works. Even so, I have seen plenty of disagreements over the intentions of various authors. I have come to the opposite conclusion that Smith has, on interpretation. Even if the Constitution were not peppered with weasel words like "reasonable and proper", I'm pretty sure that such a document could not be written in a way that would not have people disagreeing, and I mean disagreeing honestly, about what it means. In other words, I think the whole notion of government limited by constitution is unworkable, in the way Smith imagines it can work. On the other hand, constitutions are pretty darn good propaganda tools, getting people to sign on to the notion, in an almost religious fashion, of having a ruling class over them. Reality is my proof. We have a government in no way limited by constitution (it is not performing its alleged function); yet people keep writing religiously about our Constitutional Republic (it performs its true propaganda function). Paul Bonneau
Dear Ken, An old friend of mine recently forwarded one of those Internet chain-letters to me that, most of the time are more annoying than informative. This one was urging people to boycott Pepsi's new cans, believe it or not, not because they feature the American flag, and not because they display the Pledge of Allegiance, but because the words "under God" have been left out of the pledge, in the words of the corporation, so as not to offend anybody. The chain-letter asks recipients to spread the message. This is what I wrote back to my friend, his list of copyees, and quite a few correspondents of my own: How about spreading this, too...? The so-called "Pledge of Allegiance" is an oath of unquestioning fealty of a kind that Americans rightly junked when they kicked the King's backside out in 1776. It was written in 1892—when the Republic was already more than a century old—by a socialist, Francis Bellamy, a preacher who got fired by his congregation for using the pulpit to preach socialism rather than whatever he'd been hired to preach. Bellamy's cousin and best friend was Edward Bellamy, who wrote America's best-known socialist propaganda novel, the impossibly boring and stupid Looking Backward (which became my standard for how not to write a political novel when I started my first book, The Probability Broach in 1977). Francis Bellamy recommended that children taking the pledge face the flag in a worshipful manner and offer it a salute which was later self-consciously copied by the Nazis. The phrase "under God" was only added in the 1950s, in blatant violation of the First Amendment, by self-righteous twits in the Eisenhower Administration. If you want your rights respected, you must respect the rights of others, If you want the Second Amendment enforced to the letter, you must insist that the First Amendment be enforced to the letter, as well. It is the government that owes its unquestioning fealty to Americans, not the other way around. That's what makes America different from every other country in the world, from every other civilization in history. To paraphrase the immortal Alfonso Bedoya, "We don' need no stinkin' loyalty oath—especially one written by a stinkin' socialist!" Be well, L. Neil Smith
The Robinson Family—Lost in Oregon Mr. Holder: That "Subject" line reads like it ought to be a joke. It's not. Let me recommend to you the WorldNetDaily article authored by Dr. Art. Robinson today, online at [This Link] Dr. Robinson did, after all, receive the endorsement of the Oregon state Libertarian Party in last year's elections. Richard Bartucci
Ladies and Gentlemen, In an effort to reach more individuals with the various articles and essays that I've been writing for so many years, I established The Libertarian Enterprise over fifteen years ago, and more recently created Where We Stand (featuring "The Plan"), and began republishing my book Lever Action online. The resources on these sites are yours to draw on in what may turn out to be, one way or another, individualism's final desperate battle for survival against human termites and the forces of collectivism. If you think I'm being overly dramatic, read what I just wrote in last week's TLE about the UN's "Agenda 21". I keep three "major" mailing lists (this message is not going to them, but to a much smaller group of friends and colleagues), Group523, Media523, and Party523. The first is just people in general who have expressed interest in what I do or who I think might be interested. The second group are people who work for newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, and various aspects of the New Media. The third group was intended to be individuals at the state and county levels in the Libertarian Party, but I've begun to include Tea Party fellow travelers, as well. These lists need to be much larger if my work—especially "The Plan"—is to have the impact I believe this country needs. So I'm asking you to help me. If you have names and addresses I can use, please send them to me. I don't want to spam anybody against their will, so please send names and addresses for Group523 only of those you think will consider it a favor. Media523, of course, is a different matter, but I still want names and addresses of individuals rather than companies or institutions. Finally, I'd like to have names and addresses for at least half a dozen individuals in each of the state Libertarian Parties. I'd also like to find Tea Partiers who are weary of constant warfare and are interested in items other than abortion, which is the issue the Left counts on to keep the Freedom Movement divided. Your help in these crucial times will be greatly appreciated—and remembered. L. Neil Smith
Big News on Atlas Shrugged the movie!!!!!! The following is from our friend Fred James, otherwise known as "Il Fettucinni": Aloha Ye Who Want to See Atlas Shrugged! Big News! Atlas Shrugged Part 1 has been "Asked for" by the big three Cinemas companies in the US!!! In other words, those of us who were worried that Atlas might not be in our local theaters come April 15th, might be surprised that it will indeed be there!!!!! I spoke to Ron Rogers of Rocky Mountain Pictures this morning about how to get Atlas to be in MY home town theater here in Bellingham. He told me that usually, his company, Rocky Mountain Pictures which represents independent film makers, has to go TO THE BIG THREE (Regal, AMC and Cinemark) and pitch the to get films in their theaters. This time, they don't have to do that; all three have come to them ASKING for Atlas Shrugged!!!!!!!!!!!! "If this is true" I asked him, "then why don't I see it in "Upcoming movies" on my local theater's WEB page?" He answered, "Because the process has just begun. The big three received their initial cassettes this week." After the big three get their film cassettes, they have to determine where each of their copies will be shown. Once they make that decision, the advance trailers are mailed to the theaters and publicity is written and sent out. Ron Rogers said watch the Atlas Shrugged web site and go to the Theaters draw down and gradually more and more theaters will be listed! So there is a god! I live with her and she will be going to Atlas with me on April 15th at my local theater and I should know in several weeks WHICH theater. So ye of little faith. We might well have a major hit on our hands. VUNDABAR!!!!!!!!!! Aloha Nui Loa, IL Fettucinni
Re the letter from Paul Bonneau in issue 609: I owe an apology to Paul Bonneau and some others for not updating my home page for a geological age. Sorry about that, chief! It seems that more danged emergencies over the last seven and a half years than I care to count have invaded my web-mastering work to the point of stoppage. I need to make a new home page, indexing the three sections of content and explaining that I really am no longer a minarchist. The House of Repeals site www.usrepeals.org is now three distinct works spanning a couple of decades. The oldest is my academic site from Caltech at usrepeals.org/ca/mtbpers/MTB_home.html and linked from the bottom of the home page. The middle one is what you see as the current home page and related content. It is there as a resource for minarchists in case they prove me wrong and do, in fact, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The latest is my archive of columns from this magazine, which also needs an update. The link to that is hidden from Paul on the left side of the home page and is www.usrepeals.org/tle/index.html. If you want to read about 5GW, skip the first three columns, as those are my opening salvo about the three flights of SpaceShipOne from the Mojave Spaceport. "Hell, I was there!" (With apologies to Elmer Keith.) The first exposition of 5GW is in the fourth column "Election and Revolution" in issue 295, October 31, 2004 of this magazine. I am not a minarchist-capitalist any more. I am an Anarcho-capitalist. For many years I wanted to be an anarchist, but could not because I could not solve the power vacuum problem. In short:
After decades of revisiting the power vacuum problem I came up dry. Jim Bell solved it; with one flaw that I could see, and that stopped it cold. Jim believed that the government people would obey their own laws. We all know that they do not. So I added the historically proven "top-down, distributed order of battle" as a first phase and tacked Jim's thesis on as phase-two to form 5GW. Fifth Generation War (5GW) is an extension of William Lind's history of modern war; laid out in four "generations", or types of strategy, based on the influences of the technology of the time with an exception in the forth generation. Sov. Lind said that "in the forth generation, what changes is who fights and what they fight for". See his archive at lewrockwell.com. In the fifth generation "who fights and what they fight for" changes again, along with the fundamental strategy; thereby making a new generation as per Sov. Lind's progression. This time it is not national armies fighting for King and Country (generations one through three), nor is it guerrilla bands fighting to replace the old boss with a new one from their ranks. It is free people fighting to overthrow the state permanently and have anarchy and order for the long term. Finally (as of 2004), I don't have to be a minarchist any more! I hope that the above may clear up any misunderstanding. Michael Bradshaw
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